PS Now is mainstream? Nah.

Also, xcloud isn't Microsoft's main focus. Also strange how when multiple focuses benefits Sony you can see it but Microsoft either has to be all in on VR or nothing, there aren't layers of focus when Xbox is involved.

Should your post be taken as a prediction that Scarlett's lack of VR focus will hurt the sales of the console?

You underestimate the strength of the VR userbase.

Supposedly like 5m+ PSVR, and 10m+ on the PC side of things....
Not fantastic numbers, but its early in the VR days, and I believe theres growth in the space.

Also apparently even though theres not many of them out there, their owners are usually big spenders (on games).
People here seem to completely dis-reguard VR.

So you can make a joke of me thinking too highly of it, but the same can be said for people that just strait up ignore it.
Theres still money to be made on the VR side of things.

The USA has the biggest spending per consumer on video games, so if something isn't catching on in the US, it is most likely not catching on elsewhere either, especially in the case of expensive peripherals. Are you seriously likening Piscatella to ordinary forum goers who have no access to sales data of official sales trackers whatsoever?

No I'm not talking about forum goers. I was talking of the likes of professional analysts that are always wrong like Patcher.

About USA being the biggest spender, it still isn't the sole market nor is all markets equal to USA but smaller. Plenty of stuff makes success let's say in Japan but not USA.

I am looking at those Statista numbers. Their 2018 figures are estimates and their 2019 figures are estimates based on their estimates for 2018. VR numbers have been scarce for a while, including HTC's refusal to disclose their own sales. When sales numbers don't get disclosed anymore, it's a sign that something is performing below expectations. An obvious console-related example of this is Microsoft's refusal to disclose shipment numbers for the Xbox One.

Growth in the VR market is small, if it's even there at all. Plus it's spurred by steep discounts, such as Sony's $199 deal last holiday season. That's not a sign for a healthy market and it obviously means that there's not much money to be made when units have to be moved at such cheap prices.

Your response to the lack of profitability doesn't hold merit. Sony has sold 4m+ headsets in three years, so even the hypothetical best case scenario for drawing in users is capped at those same 4m+. But of course the actual number of people who bought a PS4 because of VR is much, much smaller than that because most headsets were sold to people who already had a PS4.

If you put it all together and look at the prospect of drawing in maybe one million additional users when that requires a lot of R&D for a headset, costs for game development to provide VR users with something to play and costs for marketing to get the word out, it should be easy to see why investing that time and money into something other than VR provides a much bigger chance for a good payoff for Xbox.

I'll give you an example of something Microsoft should invest in instead of VR: Marketing deals for third party games. Sony got to make deals for almost every major third party game in the past several years and since third party games are the big hardware movers for both PS and Xbox, that's a big deal. Microsoft's goal should be to get Xbox back to where it was with the 360, be the console of choice for multiplats. That is something that will draw in users and not just a million or two.

About the only reason one can name why Xbox should have its own VR headset is because Sony is doing VR. But that's based on the premise that PS is the gold standard and everything they do is good and a success.

I think it is being discussed, aren't we doing it right here?

I personally have not bought a single VR device so I have no preference, but I think it's too soon to say that current low sales means that the technology is not viable. We still have to see if, given VR being more affordable and with a good number of games making use of it, backed by one or a few big IP makers, how it will be received over the course of time. Here, a pitch to you. Metroid Prime VR, how insanely sick would that be?

Some things to consider:

- The adoption of a technology by the overall population does not necessarily mean that it was the better pick.

- The way that a technology is showcased by the different industry players can positively or negatively affect the reception of a given technology. The technology may fail because no one was able to realize how to make it work. It may be brought back to life in the future.

Remember when people called motion controls a gimmick because the Wii's hardware wasn't flawless, bashing Nintendo for creating useless controls that were not even usable (the definition of a gimmick). But the technology was too young and then Nintendo came out with the Wiimotion+. It was still not flawless because the experience wasn't always seamless and sometimes broke the 4th wall.

VR, motion controls, all these innovations are still too young. As people become more connected to their technology, it's very possible that people will want to be more immersed, be it via more organic controls, or a more immersive perspective, so long as these don't violate the 4th wall. Even if the current implementations are awkward, too expensive or just generally don't hit the right spot, it doesn't mean that they're forever doomed.

Personally, I was a big fan of the motion controls in Skyward Sword and wished for the next Zelda to make use of motion controls. But because the motion controls weren't perfect and caused a 4-th wall breakage, and because it just wasn't a well-received Zelda game (as compared to TP, OoT and botW), they abandoned them. But let's explore an alternate history for fun. Breath of the wild was released instead of Skyward Sword, highly popular due to its game design, but this time with flawless motion controls. It's a success. Nintendo decides to invest more R&D into big, serious new game experiences that integrate motion controls. It's a different world of gaming.

And even if one day VR dies, it doesn't mean that it was intrinsically bad, much like today motion controls are dormant but it didn't necessarily have to be that way.

In the end, these are waves, fashions and trends. Some technologies might just not be arriving at the right time, or just need more time to mature.

I think that people have a gripe with Microsoft going the safe way here instead of joining Sony in pushing unproven technologies of the future. But Microsoft is absolutely entitled to its decision and you know just as well as me, they as a company suffer from cyber-bullying. They will always be portrayed as the idiots of the industry because that's the nature of the fanbases. Sony has done a magical job at charming its customers, and Microsoft has an old unshakable reputation at being a monopolistic business. Unfortunately, none of this can be helped. The same people who today are bullying microsoft for things like this were the ones who judged Nintendo's motion controls as gimmicks. People just need to mature and let go of petty judgements and the world will be a better place, because very little of this is logical, most of it is emotional and attachment.